NAR President John Smaby and several other members of NAR's Leadership met with U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Ben Carson, Acting Assistant Secretary and Fair Housing Administration (FHA) to urge them to release the long-awaited FHA condominium rule.

The U.S. Department of Treasury published an update to the National Strategy for Combating Terrorist and Other Illicit Financing, developed from three risk assessments, including one specifically focused on money laundering threats to the U.S. financial system.

NAR submitted comments to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (collectively “the Agencies”) on a the threshold for requiring an appraisal in commercial real estate transactions to $400,000 from the current level of $250,000.

Following the end of the government shut-down, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Housing Service is once again issuing Section 502 Conditional Commitments, which are required for USDA loans to close.